TRENDS IN EDUCATION Guntars Catlaks Senior research co-ordinator EI CEE Round Table Bucharest, 29th – 30th September 2010

Structure Education at a Glance 2010, OECD Economic versus social perspective Social outcomes of education Resources in education School choice Tertiary education Measuring, ranking, reforming – PISA 2009

Education at a Glance 2010 Annual OECD publication based on statistical indicators (2008 data) Who participates in education? What is spent on education? How education systems operate? What results do they achieve? Compares countries performance - informs policy http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag2010

Correlation or causality? Education – what for? Economic benefits of education employability, earnings, private benefits (returns) + new indicator on the “economic links with education” Social outcomes of education better health, political interest and interpersonal trust Other…. Correlation or causality?

Employability the percentage of 25-64 year-olds in employment, by level of educational attainment

Economic links with education Deviation from the OECD mean annual labour costs of tertiary-educated individuals, by age groups

Earnings – gender gap! Average earnings of females as a percentage of those of males (25-64 year-olds), by level of educational attainment

Private incentives to invest present value of an investment’s future cash flows net of the initial investment, discounted at a 3% real interest rate.

Social outcomes – HEALTH proportion of adults reporting that their health is good

POLITICAL INTEREST Proportion of adults expressing interest in politics, by level of educational attainment

INTERPERSONAL TRUST Proportion of adults expressing interpersonal trust, by level of educational attainment

Financial resources Annual expenditure by educational institutions per student in primary through tertiary education, by type of services (2007)

Costs are increasing… Changes in the number of students and changes in expenditure by educational institutions per student, by level of education (2000, 2007)

…but not as fast as GDP! Expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP, for all levels of education (1995, 2000, 2007)

Takes different share of public money, though Takes different share of public money, though... Total public expenditure on education, as a percentage of total public expenditure (2000, 2007)

How much teachers earn?

How teachers’ relative salary affects students costs How teachers’ relative salary affects students costs? Contribution of various factors to salary cost per student as a percentage of GDP per capita, at primary level of education (2007)

School choice Exit, voice and loyalty are three options available to consumers when they face insufficient or deteriorating quality of goods or services (Hirschman, 1970) Competitive spirit – will raise initiative Catering for narrow range of education offer - specialization Autonomy will improve creativity No evidence!

Tertiary education – fees and loans Relationships between average tuition fees charged by public institutions and proportion of students who benefit from public loans AND/OR scholarships/grants in tertiary-type A education (academic year 2006-07)

Effectiveness? Proportion of students who enter tertiary education without graduating from at least a first degree at this level (2008)

International mobility Long-term growth in the number of students enrolled outside their country of citizenship

Distribution of foreign students in tertiary education, by country of destination (2008)

Financing for Results - key message OECD countries as a whole spend USD 9 195 annually per student from primary through tertiary education: USD 6 756 per primary student, USD 8 153 per secondary student and USD 16 625 per tertiary student significant increase in spending per student over the past decade has, in many countries, not been matched with improvements in the quality of learning outcomes

The future, according to the OECD, will measure the success of education systems no longer by how much countries spend on education or by how many individuals complete a degree, but by the educational outcomes achieved and by their impact on economic and social progress

We must learn to measure what we value, rather than valuing what we can easily measure (Education Counts, 1991)